Quotes
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Know, know with all your heart and mind, that in moments of crisis, there is no one you can count on. No relative, no friend, no dear one you know; in the big moment everyone throws off their mask, shows their raw selfishness, and you are left alone when you most need someone to stand by your side and offer a kind word, a look of encouragement. You expect no more from anyone, but in danger, you don't get that either.
Live meekly and patiently among people, but trust no one to help you. Train yourself to be lonely and strong. Know that no one will ever help you. And don't complain about it. You are human, so you cannot expect anything from people, and that is natural.
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Like the sailor whose ship has been caught in a storm, and suddenly he sees the sails tightening, the great sail panels swelling ominously with the hurricane's frenzied breath, the wires creaked and crackled, and on the bobbing and dancing deck, amid the roaring and crashing waves, he staggered, and with his last strength, rushed to the sails and ropes to loosen them all: so you too, in the dangerous and turbulent moments of your life, know that you cannot endure great tensions, human bonds and relationships must be loosened, otherwise everything breaks and tears. At such times, throw everything aside: work, human relations, life order, and leave yourself to fate and the storm. In every life and in every period of life such storms arise, when all that has been bound up until then cannot stand the strain of the storm of passionate passions. Relax and wait. By morning the storm will have passed.
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People, of course, always want the writer, the explainer, the explicator, to speak in their interests. The writer cannot fulfil this wish, because human interests are inextricably and contradictory: the writer can only ever express the truth, or at least that is his intention. But, at the same time, when people eagerly and impatiently demand that the writer should speak for and on their behalf of whatever is in their interest, they also expect him to be unrivalled and uninterested. Therefore you must know that you can never please them: if you serve their interests, you will lose yourself, if you are impartial, you will lose the favour of the people, if you tell the truth, they will not examine and criticise what you have said, but will discover shortcomings in your work, will object that you did not say this or that, and will question why you did not say it?
No one asks a milliner to make shoes, no one asks a cobbler to make a hat: but everyone asks a writer to do everything, with equal fervour and impatience. Therefore, never listen to anyone but your soul and the Angel.
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Avoid them as much as possible. Because they are worse than traitors. For there is indeed no excuse for the traitor: a rope for him. But he who, with a cautious self-preservation, loiters about you and the common cause, and has neither courage nor morality to remain alone, nor to bear the consequences of action, treachery, or revenge: these are indeed the most vile. The traitor at least acts: he betrays. His action has consequences, which are borne by both the traitor and the victim. Betrayal is a vile act, but it is an act. But the cautious, who with plain countenance are there for the common cause, and are not brave enough to retire into utter solitude, the doer, the heroic, but not brave enough either to defend or to betray the cause under whose slogan they prowl among men, these, whom every man feels to be on his own side, and in reality are never men or heroes enough to show themselves with all consequences: they who are cowards to treachery, weak to revenge, and powerless to solitude, are the most dangerous. You may despise the traitor. But do not despise such a man, nor pursue him; look over him as through the air.
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People like to be rude and hateful as soon as they get the chance; and most of the time they are indeed as peculiarly cruel as children. But you remain humble, and at the same time keep your dignity. For you can only keep both at the same time. Your dignity will be a distorted conduct, if it is not backed by the consciousness of the humility of your fallible being; your humble conduct will be the expression of the cowardice of a sissy, if it is not backed by a sense of your human dignity. If you must live among men - and you are neither tapir nor vulture, so where else can you live? -you must rule and obey at the same time, always with dignity and modesty, always with seriousness and readiness, always with humility and dignity. Otherwise you are but a boastful freebooter, a pitiful and cowardly slave. But Epictetus was indeed a slave: yet he bore this fate with humility and ruled over men.
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